By NEIL MODIE, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Published 9:00 pm, Friday, March 14, 2003

OLYMPIA -- Is tax-cutting initiative purveyor Tim Eyman a "horse's ass?" The answer may never be known.

Siding with the state attorney general, Thurston County Superior Court Judge Gary Tabor ruled yesterday that a proposed statewide initiative declaring Eyman to be a horse's ass isn't a proper subject for an initiative. It isn't legislative in nature, he said, and therefore is "outside the power given to the people."

An initiative, the judge added, must be "for a purpose other than expressing a sentiment."

David Goldstein, the Seattle software publisher who sponsored Initiative 831, said he will appeal Tabor's ruling to the state Supreme Court. He filed the measure to mock what he says is Eyman's subversion of the initiative process by sponsoring legally flawed measures to enrich himself.

Goldstein said he will continue collecting signatures and raising money to get I-831 onto the November election ballot. Tabor, however, barred state officials from accepting the initiative petition even if it obtains the required 197,734 voters' signatures by July 3.

That's a huge number for an initiative sponsor not using paid signature solicitors as Eyman does with his ballot propositions. Goldstein said he has between 5,000 and 6,000 signatures so far.

He said he also intends to form a "legal offense fund" to challenge Eyman's future initiatives in court to try to have them kept off the ballot.

Eyman, a Mukilteo wristwatch salesman, has seen three of his last four voter-approved initiatives invalidated by the courts.

In an e-mail responding to Tabor's ruling, he said: "The Washington court system is brutally hostile to the initiative process. The irony of this situation is, one of (Goldstein's) major goals was to get the courts to keep unconstitutional initiatives off the ballot, and that's exactly what the courts did here."

Goldstein has an alternative initiative ready, one he said should pass legal muster with Tabor, declaring Feb. 4 to be "Tim Eyman is a Horse's Ass Day" in Washington. He said it would be "legislative" in nature and similar to declarations passed by the Legislature to honor other famous people, but would have no legal effect. But he said he doesn't intend to file it at least for the time being.

Feb. 4 was the date last year when Eyman held a tearful, impromptu news conference at the Mukilteo post office, confessing that he had diverted more than $200,000 in campaign contributions into a secret salary fund for himself after having claimed publicly to be an unpaid volunteer.

He confessed two days after the Post-Intelligencer reported that he had taken the money and lied about it. After the state attorney general sued him, Eyman paid a $50,000 fine last year and agreed to a lifetime ban on being a campaign treasurer.

How would Goldstein celebrate Tim Eyman Is a Horse's Ass Day? "I suppose with a tearful confession at the Mukilteo post office," he said.

Tabor, besides saying I-831 wasn't legislative in nature, said it amounts to an unconstitutional "bill of attainder" that legislatively punishes an individual outside the judicial process. He said the initiative is "clearly an attempt to degrade or punish" by public humiliation because, among other things, it would require that copies of the initiative be served on Eyman, his wife and his mother.

Senior assistant attorney general James Pharris urged the judge not to allow Goldstein to "hijack the election process" by submitting an improper initiative to the voters. He termed the measure "a verbal whoopee cushion."